Earlier, I asked what if the vaccine doesn't work? I did so because pro-vaccine assholes over at Kottke had written something called Anti-vaxx? How about pro-disease? It turns out there is research out there clearly showing outbreaks happen within vaccinated populations:
Here's a link to a google scholar search on one of the researchers she cites. Many studies, not just one.
We can put away the idea that people who don't vaccinate are causing the problem. People who get the vaccine can get the disease anyway, and later on in her talk, Dr. Tetyana Obukhanych points out a more troubling issue- intergenerational effects of vaccine reliance. Mothers provide infants with immunity through breast milk, unless they've taken the vaccines in childhood and have a false sense of security about the protection the vaccine provides.
This reminds me of Steve Johnson, in Ghost Map presenting the anarchist's case against public health initiatives- because the first big public health initiative- the attempt to clean up London- lead to a terrible outbreak of cholera, and everything the government did made it worse. Of course, somewhere in his book Johnson goes back on the picture he paints and suggests that we surely do want public health policies...
The government is pretty dependable in its tendency to back the wrong horse, which is likely most obvious now in the green technology sector. The great golden age of science was funded by many people with private fortunes who would be taken with this or that idea. With funding increasingly centralized- and various agenda specific entrance tests in certain fields (try making a living as a climatologist if you aren't afraid of carbon dioxide) - the number of people with original ideas who get funding are likely at an all time low.
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